The Contemporary Pacific: a journal of island affairs publishes material across a wide range of disciplines, addressing social, economic, political, ecological, literary, and cultural issues, aiming to provide “comprehensive coverage of contemporary developments in the entire Pacific Islands region and the global Pacific diaspora.” Regular issues include scholarly Articles, Dialogues (interviews and short essays), Political Reviews, and Book and Media Reviews. The journal is available through Project Muse and is indexed in many scholarly indexes.

The Volume 28, number 1, 2016 issue offers four research articles: “Local Norms and Truth Telling: Examining Experienced Incompatibilities within Truth Commissions of Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste,” “Multidimensional, Gender-Sensitive Poverty Measurement: Perspectives from Fiji,” “Musical Melanesianism: Imagining and Expressing Regional Identity and Solidarity in Popular Song and Video,” and “Cartooning History: Lai’s Fuji and the Misadventures of a Scrawny Black Cat.” There are two Dialogues, as well: “Berths and Anchorages: Pacific Cultural Studies from Oceania,” and “Rethinking Pacific Studies Twenty Years On,” along with two Political Reviews: “Micronesia in Review: Issues and Events, 1 July 2014 to 30 June 2015” and “Polynesia in Review: Issues and Events, 1 July 2014 to 30 June 2015,” and nine scholarly book reviews and two documentary reviews. The print version features black and white photographs but notes that color copies of photographs are available at the online version of the journal.

Volume 27, number 2, 2015 was a Special Issue of the journal focusing on Decolonization, Language, and Identity: The Francophone Islands of the Pacific. The Articles, Dialogues, and Political Reviews focus on the theme of “maintaining an indigenous identity within the French colonial system.” The issue also holds a Resources piece: “Resources for Research in French Polynesia and New Caledonia,” which identifies and describes research collections rich in Pacific Island resources.

While it is a high-quality research journal, The Contemporary Pacific is written in a more accessible manner than many other scholarly journals, and will be of interest to both scholars of the region and those simply interested in the culture of the Pacific Islands. If you’d like to take a free look at an issue of The Contemporary Pacific, download the Special Issue vol. 13, no. 2 (Fall 2001), Native Pacific Cultural Studies on the Edge, guest-edited by Vicente M. Diaz and J. Kehaulani Kauanui and featuring work by Native and nonnative Pacific scholars that ‘seeks to triangulate the arenas of "native studies," "Pacific studies," and "cultural studies."’